The oil paintings of East Brunswick resident Don Bloom will be on display in the art gallery at the Academy of Music on Main Street, Spotswood, starting Sunday. SPOTSWOOD – Academy of Music on Main Street will open a new show in its art gallery featuring the oil paintings of Don Bloom.
An opening reception and gallery talk by the artist will be held Sunday from 5- 7 p.m.
“We are pleased to be able to exhibit this well-known artist’s work,” said Melody Blasenheim, director of the academy. “Many people may have already seen Mr. Bloom’s works, such as two paintings in the East Brunswick and South River public libraries. This is a wonderful opportunity for the community to speak to the artist. We hope our patrons will enjoy attending the reception and meeting the artist firsthand.”
Bloom has been a serious painter for 53 years. Starting in his teens as a sports cartoonist and heading toward an illustration career, a scholarship at the Art Student’s League of New York and exposure to galleries and museums in the Big Apple steered him in the direction of fine arts. In his early 20s, he began to exhibit and win major prizes and scholarships while pursuing careers as an advertising illustrator, art educator, editorial cartoonist and caricaturist.
Bloom has continued to paint, exhibit and collect numerous prizes along the way. A unique feeling for color and movement is apparent in his paintings, organizers of the upcoming exhibit said. The works are built up in luminous layers, sprayed periodically with retouch varnish. Always present are the artist’s interests – man in his environment and the relationship of figures to each other. The subjects of the work on display are parents holding children, markets and vendors, and billiards rooms.
Bloom, whose lengthy biography has been included in “Who’s Who in American Art,” was an editorial cartoonist for Greater Media Newspapers and Forbes newspapers between 1978 and 1990. At that time, two of his drawings were awarded national prizes. Since 1970, he was an art supervisor and teacher in New Jersey public schools and was a painting instructor at various colleges, art centers and adult schools. He has done many lectures and demonstrations and has been a juror for numerous regional and state exhibits.
In 1956, the Newark News selected him as one of five “Artists of the Year” in New Jersey. He had just been awarded a full scholarship in a worldwide competition to the Institute Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Bloom, whose paintings have been awarded cash prizes in national, regional and state exhibits, has had dozens of one man shows in galleries, colleges and libraries in the United States and Mexico. His works have been shown at the Baseball Hall of Fame, and are in the collections of colleges and universities including Rutgers, Fairleigh Dickinson, Montclair State, Upsala and Bloomfield. Hundreds of his works are in Private Collections.
The show will run from Sunday through March 26. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.